Right Beside You
by Dramionetash
Summary: After a tragedy strikes Hermione's family she finds comfort in a familiar yet unfamiliar place. Will Draco help her and her family move through the dark or will it end up being another mistake?


Hermione woke to the shrill cry of a child, the same way she had been woken up for the past four years. She considered rolling over to tap her companion on the shoulder, ask him to go to the child instead, except of course he wasn't there. He had never come home.

She made her way blearily down the hall to the small pink bedroom at the end. "Oh Cressie you've got yourself into a right mess my baby" she said as her gaze fell upon the four year old who was caught up amongst her blankets. It took some time to settle the girl again, Hermione almost falling asleep on the bed next to her.

"Mum, you're in Cressida's room again" a soft voice said, pulling her from her slumber again. A small boy stood in front of her, his brown hair curly and untameable like hers. She stood kissing him on the head before pushing him in the direction of his room.

"Back to bed Hugo my sweet, I'll see you in the morning" Hermione said entering her lonely, cold room once again. The smell of Ron that had once lingered was long gone, he had been missing for two months now, a mission at the Auror's office gone wrong.

There marriage wasn't working up to that point anyway, they had simply stayed together for the children and what Hermione believed was Ron's incessant need to be the same as Harry, yet that didn't mean his disappearance didn't cause her severe heartache. She had tried to remain strong for her children, for her friends and family and for herself but deep inside she knew that after a month of him being gone the chances of him coming home were slim.

Hugo at 10 years old could understand that his father was missing, his job had always been dangerous and that was never a secret around the home. Cressida at age four didn't understand and simply wanted her Daddy to come home. Hermione had held a sliver of hope, until earlier that day when the Minister of Magic, Kingsley Shacklebolt walked through her front gate.

He offered his condolences, said Ron's body was too dismembered to identify on sight. Hermione hadn't cried then, she hadn't cried as Ginny and Harry sat sobbing in her living room, and she hadn't cried as she held her only son who screamed for the loss of his father. She had remained strong all day, held it together and went to sleep in the bed they had shared for 11 years. It wasn't until 11:57 that evening that she allowed the tears to fall. She cried for her failed marriage, for her children, for her friends and family who suffered this loss alongside her, for her husband whose life was stolen, and for herself - a woman who had everything and yet simultaneously had absolutely nothing.

Draco stood in his kitchen thumbing through his mail and sipping his shitty lukewarm coffee when a small card unlike any of the other bills and work notices caught his eye. He pulled it out, his face going stony when he realised it was an invite to something he had hoped to never attend:

Please help us in commemorating

War hero Ron Weasley

Supporting his wife Hermione

and children Hugo and Cressie

in their bereavement.

Funeral today 12pm.

The coffee that was lukewarm felt ice cold in Draco's throat as he read the words over and over again. He had known Ron Weasley was missing, he had worked alongside Seamus Finnegan and Dean Thomas for nearly two months now, and lord knows the two of them were nearly grey from the stress of it all. The job of an auror was a dangerous one, everybody knew that. Most family men didn't keep in the industry - Potter had looked for other employment after the birth of his first spawn, Draco had known that. Draco didn't like Weasley, hated him in fact, but there was a strange ache in his chest when he thought of Hermione and the two children the weasel had left behind.

Draco glanced at the clock and saw that he had 20 minutes to change and make it to the funeral. He cleared his schedule and changed into his nicest black suit, leaving a note for his mother to let her know where he had gone and calling Blaise on the way out telling him to meet him there. He refused to acknowledge the tear that escaped his eyes when he blinked, the death of a man he supposedly hated wouldn't get to him, he would see to that.


End file.
